Thursday, July 28, 2011
"Girl Books" and "Boy Books"
In today's society many people are focused on the idea of blurring gender lines so that there are not specific roles for females and specific roles for males. In order to do this, it would make sense to teach children at a young age that there is no such thing as "girl books" or "boy books" but instead literature is open to any gender. Since literature is such a huge part of children's learning experiences, teachers might think it is a good idea to stock their classroom library with gender neutral texts. While I do agree that younger children should be exposed to this type of literature, I think it might also be beneficial to provide students with "girl books" and "boy books" so they can find something to relate to while they are growing up. With this thought in mind, I started to think back to the types of stories I was most interested in as a child. Once I started reading on my own, I fell in love with the American Girl book series, The Babysitters Club, and other book series that featured female characters that I could relate to. Of course, my older brother would never have been as engaged in those books as I was and he had his own idea of what a good book was. In order to make reading an enjoyable experience for children as they grow up and enter confusing and sometimes awkward phases of adolescence, it is important that they can relate to the character's or scenarios in the book. If children are going to read they most likely want it to be something that is meaningful to them. I am curious as to what your opinions on putting "girls books" and "boys books" on the classroom shelf are? Instead of assigning books to the class as a whole, teachers could provide boys and girls separate reading to see how well they relate or react to the text. While I do not think this should be an ongoing trend in the classroom, I do think it could be a good way to get children to enjoy reading.
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As I was reading this whole article I was thinking of my opinion and then the next sentence you would take the words right out of my mouth. It was weird needless to say.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, children's books are not the only place where gender roles are pushed so it would be hard to fight them with books only. All the people in a child's life and society as a whole would have to be anti-gender roles for a child to be completely neutral. I, personally, do not agree with blurring the roles. To some extent, yes, they should or can be blurred, but others not so much. It is simple. Men and women are different. We are wired differently so we both have strengths and weaknesses.
I guess I can see where the people who do not want the "girl books" and "boy books" are coming from though. I do not necessarily think gender role books should be assigned for class readings, but maybe for one just to test the waters. I think the stereotyped books are important for each gender to be able to identify with the characters in a book as they grow up.
I agree that it would be a good change of pace for boys to read “boys” books and girls to read “girls” books. If there are some students that are struggling or are disengaged in reading activities, this would give them more of a chance to read something that might strike some interest in them. This should not be a normal everyday activity because you do not want to enforce stereotypes in boys and girls. There should also be some books that show opposite gender stereotypes in classrooms. This will give students an opportunity to explore different experiences for their gender. For example, you could have a book that shows a woman as a police officer or fire fighter that is saving a man in danger. This would give girls an opportunity to see women in a role other than the stereotype.
ReplyDeleteI think that it's kind of a grey area. I don't think we should necessarily promote gender specific books to kids because they may further the stereotypes in their minds and segregate kids by gender even more than they already do to themselves. However, I do agree that reading is essential to education and having an interest in what you read is crucial. So, for those kids who dislike reading, yes, I think they should be exposed to gender specific books if that will spark their interest. However, parents and teachers should try other routes first and if nothing works, then try the boy/girl books. I don't think we should be too quick to hand girls books that will give them the wrong idea about their gender (and the same for boys) because they will be exposed to that later, so no need to rush it.
ReplyDeleteI would have to agree, people like to read books that they can relate to. A majority of young girls are going to relate better to books such as babysitters club, american girl, etc. rather than books pertaining to hunting or sports. Finding books can you relate to make the books easier to read and more interesting.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do believe that it is important to present children with books that are open to any gender. Also think it is important to present children with "boy books" and "girl books", but make it known that they are NOT "boy books" and "girl books". That way children could relate to whatever type of the book they want to, girls have the opportunity to relate and read "boy books" and boys have the opportunity to relate and read "girl books". Teachers need to just provide students with as many different books as they can in order to get students interested in reading at all.